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Mark Steel, a comedian, has a programme on BBC Radio 4, where he visits a town and spends 30 minutes making fun of it before an audience of local people.  When he visited Sheffield, he said something like: “The morning after the blitz, the population of Sheffield surveyed the flattened town centre and thought, ‘I quite like the look of that’.”

Cities pose questions and since the war, Sheffield has been a city in search of an identity.  Rebuilding was happening when I was a small child.  I remember it but didn’t understand why it was happening.  By the 1960s, regeneration of the city centre got into its stride: the Hole in the Road, the other hole everyone’s forgotten, Hyde Park and Park Hill flats, and loads of brutalist architecture (see Day 3), which at the time seemed futuristic.

I was away for most of the 17 years from 1972.  Up to that point Steel City, the cleanest Industrial City in Europe, was the greatest shopping centre outside of London.  (Apparently, it’s Nottingham now, but I haven’t checked.)

Over those 17 years, the steel industry went into precipitate decline and the question for the city was: what next?  So far, there have been loads of answers but nothing definite.

When I returned to the city in 1989, the Meadowhall shopping centre was to open on an old steel industry site, it was connected to the city centre by the new Supertram and en route took in the World Student Games Arena, Stadium and Ponds Forge swimming pool.  Meadowhall took shoppers out of the city centre, Supertram further disrupted the city centre (including removal of the Hole in the Road) and the World Student Games were a lukewarm blessing.  The Stadium was demolished a few years ago to make way for housing.

The next opportunity for change was the Millennium and some major changes to the city centre, especially the Winter Gardens and Millennium Gallery.  And further changes are happening as I write, despite rising costs reducing some of the plans.

Over these years, art has played a major role.  The Cultural Industries Quarter is a centre near the station for cinema, radio, TV and art galleries.  There are loads of opportunities for artists and most notably street art.  The decline of industry led to urban explorers, entering disused factories and experimenting with monumental images on the walls and then some took their skills to the streets,  Notably, Phlegm (whose work can be seen all over the world – his art on the photo is a squid pulling a boat but now past its glory days), Kid Acne and Faunagraphic.  (You can see more examples at Street Art Sheffield.  Or if you prefer to stick with 7th Wave, here is a recent post from Martin, Art and About.)

Sheffield is also noted for music, Jarvis Cocker, Arctic Monkeys and my favourites The Everly Pregnant Brothers, who capture Sheffield humour in classics (all on YouTube) such as “Oyl int Ruwad” (find the Lego version), “69 to Rovvrum” (to the tune of “Ground Control to Major Tom”) and “No Oven, No Pie” skewers male Sheffielders’ obsession with pie and Hendos. 

After all these years Sheffield still seeks an identity.  Situated on 7 hills (see day 2), it is hard to get to and to move about compared with other cities.  With steel almost gone, why put a city there to do stuff that would be easier elsewhere?

And yet … there is a long tradition in Sheffield of Little Mesters, in charge of their own fate.  Loads of artists and small businesses, none of them answers to the question, what next?  Do cities have personalities?  I believe they do and they offer their residents insights into possible futures, rooted in the lives of those who have gone before.  We all see a bit of it and maybe somehow, tiny insights come together to create a future that’ll be alright.

This year's Writing Challenge, fueled by prompts, is about the City of Sheffield.  Be surprised by what's included and even more surprised by what's left out.  This is Post 7 and there are 21 altogether.  Share your thoughts and your love for the City in the comments.  The first Post 0 is Context: Sheffield.  The last post 6 is Death in Sheffield.  The next post 8 is Big Up the Hill.